Shadow-ey things.

I was asked to post bits and pieces :)

Without warning there was a scraping sound as Dean drew up another chair to the already slightly crowded bar table.

“So did you get anything besides her number?” Sam asked him, not even looking up from his research. Dean scoffed.

“Dude, I’m a professional. I’m offended you would think that.”

Everyone looked at him in unison, eyebrows raised disbelievingly.

“All right, yeah.” He admitted with a smile, pulling out a napkin with the offending number on it and laying it on the table. Emmy casually leaned over and grabbed it, inspecting the sheet with a knowing nod.

“Nice penmanship.” She said approvingly.

“Mind thinking with your upstairs brain for a minute here Dean?” Sam said with a shake of the head.

“Look, there’s nothing to find out,” Dean retorted defensively. “Meredith worked here, she waited tables, and everyone here was her friend. Everybody said she was normal. She didn’t do anything weird before she died.” Dean counted off his points on his fingers. “So did you find anything on the symbol we found in the apartment yet?”

“Nope,” Sam replied with a sigh, setting down the paper in his hand. “It wasn’t in Dad’s journal or any of the usual books. We’ll just have to dig a little deeper I guess.”

Dean looked slightly put off at the thought that the investigation was going nowhere, “Well, there was a first victim, right? Before Meredith?”

“Yup,” Lauren replied, pulling a newspaper clipping from thin air. She passed it across the table to him. Dean took it out of her hand with a little more force than was necessary. “His name was Ben Swardstrom.” She added.

“Mutilated in his town house... Door was locked... Alarm was on...” Dean muttered extracts to himself from the article under his breath as he read. He looked up as he finished, looking slightly more puzzled. “Is there any connection between the two of them?”

“Not that we can tell. Ben was a banker, Meredith was a waitress. They never met, never knew anyone in common- they were practically from different worlds,” Sam replied.

“So, to recap, the only successful intel we’ve scored so far is the bartender’s phone number.” Dean said with a smirk. He looked between the three in amusement, waiting for a snarky comeback to come his way. Instead Lauren seemed to have spotted something terrible in the distance. Her eyebrows scrunched up and she leaned forwards, staring into the space behind Dean. He swivelled in his seat quickly, looking for the source of her discomfort, half wanting to give it a high five. He didn’t see anything out of place in the dingy bar behind him. He swung back to face them with a loud “What?”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Lauren muttered to herself. Having spotted the look on her face, Sam’s eyes traced the same path Lauren’s had and they seemingly came to rest on the same thing.

“No...” he mumbled, quickly standing up from his seat. He began walking to the other side of the bar, much to the confusion of Dean and Emmy.

“Lauren...” Emmy began before Lauren got off her seat and followed Sam’s path across the bar. She quickly caught him since he was hindered by several drunk men making an attempt to play pool halfway to his destination. The two of them squared up to a small blonde woman facing the other direction. Dean watched Sam put a hand on her shoulder, though he couldn’t hear what they said from this far away.

“Dean, have you been letting Sam and Lauren out socialising again?” Emmy asked quietly. She’d picked up the napkin with the bartender’s number on it and had begun to draw aimless patterns in the free space.

“Who’s this chick, some kind of college buddy or what?” Dean asked gruffly. Emmy shrugged absentmindedly in response, “Probably. We should go over and ask.”

Dean shook his head, beginning to form some sort of reason why they should stay on this side of the bar. On second thoughts, Blondie was kinda hot. Maybe he would go over and see just how well Sam knew her.

________________________________

Dean cocked his head at Lauren, her lips were moving in a flurry but no sound seemed to be coming out. What a weirdo. He turned back to face Sam and Blondie, wanting to gauge how they knew each other.

“I came, I saw, I conquered,” the girl said with a smile. “Anyway the whole scene got old so I’m living here for a while.”

Dean half smiled sarcastically. Real nice of her to tell him her whole life story. He cleared his throat loudly, waiting on Sam to do proper introductions.

“So you’re from Chicago?” Sam asked, seemingly ignoring his brother completely.

“No Massachusetts – Andover. Gosh, Sam, what are the odds we’d run into each other?” Meg asked. Lauren snorted loudly.

“There are around two hundred and eighty eight million people living in America.” She said, looking at Meg. “And two million eight hundred odd people in Chicago alone. So... Those chances are pretty slim.” She finished in a strained voice. Dean rolled his eyes at the geekathon. He cleared his throat again, hoping to finally attract some attention to himself. Blondie finally acknowledged his presence by looking over Sam’s shoulder at him with a scowl. “Dude, cover your mouth.” She said scathingly.

Dean looked at her in shock. Sam rubbed the back of his head and gave Dean an apologetic glance.

“Yeah, I’m sorry Meg. This is my brother, Dean and this is Emmy.” He waved his hand at the two of them as he said their names in turn. Emmy gave the girl a small wave as she was introduced.

“This is Dean?” Meg said with an air of uncertainty. Dean smiled. So Sam had mentioned him.
“You’ve heard of me?” He asked.

“Oh yeah,” Meg answered with a frown “I’ve heard of you. Nice- the way you treat your brother like luggage.”

There's more done, but I don't wanna give away the whole chapter. BTW I missed out a bit inbetween these two paragrpahs so it won't read right till I post the whole thing. Enjoy!

Shannon